COPENHAGEN.- With Untitled (2021), Tove Storch initiates a large casting experiment. A large construction holds a thin, flexible metal shell from collapsing, while a pink-colored concrete mass forces it out of its stringent form. Pulled in opposing directions – outward by the structure, inward and downward by the concrete – the folded, rectangular metal shell is transformed into an organic, complex shape that can recall a ship or a feminine symbol.

Storch combines stringent and minimal constructions with a soft, delicate tone. Using industrially manufactured materials such as steel pipes and fabric, she works with their different properties and embedded potential meanings in a restrained and sensitive formal language, where abstraction and figuration meet.

At the core of the work is a physical experiment: a yielding mold, held in place only by a gigantic structure, resists the weight of concrete. Forces struggle visibly before suddenly solidifying. At the same time, forces, materials, colors, and events are charged with meaning, opening a discussion of what is shaping what.

Untitled (2021) can be seen as an early work in relation to Untitled (The Ship) (2024), shown at Storch’s solo exhibition Slumping at Gammel Strand in Copenhagen. It also relates to her recent large public commission The Ship (2025), a seventeen-meter-long concrete sculpture extending along Enghavevej in Copenhagen.

Tove Storch

Born in Denmark, 1981
Lives and works in Copenhagen, DK

In her eccentric and densely sensuous sculptures, Tove Storch investigates the interaction between material and motif. Oscillating between the everyday and the alien. Fueled by an intimate knowledge of the materials chosen, these works allow the contours of something figurative to emerge. Unpredictable and ambiguous, her works let their subjects make themselves known even as they simultaneously threaten to disappear into the realm of abstraction.

Storch is keenly interested in the limits and capabilities of materials. In some works she investigates the elasticity of silk, in others she portrays strong, rough metal as something pliable and limp. Treated with tenderness and precision, the materials reveal unknown aspects of themselves, their immediately apparent qualities receding in the articulation of something new and unexpected. Specifically, Storch often offsets tension and slackness in her study of different positions of strength: Can silk break down metal? How does the liquid shape the solid? What effect does time have on form? Through their colours, subject matter and attitudes, the works weave themselves into archetypal narratives about gender, romance and sexuality while also wrestling themselves loose from preconceived readings with quiet grace.